Visitor Arrivals Exceeded 90,000 Mark in July

our country is impressively commended for the immaculate service delivery and our everlasting “BULA Smiles” and the continuous growth trends noted in the tourism sector is a testimony of our strong tourism brand.

Visitor statistics are released every month using data sourced from the Immigration System and for the first time in July 2017, monthly visitor arrivals exceeded the 90,000 mark.

The 90,108 visitor arrival number was 5.1% higher than the previous record of 85,704 set a year ago.

There were increases noted in the number of visitors from the following countries:

New Zealand up by 2,072 or 8.5% to 26,448

The United States of America up by 1,214 or 14.6% to 9,525

Rest of Asia increased by 472 or 26.3% to 2,268

Australia increased by 422 or 1.2% to 34,584

Continental Europe up by 306 or 11.3% to 3,006

The United Kingdom up by 278 or 16.5% to 1,961

South Korea increased by 23 or 3.4% to 703

And Pacific Islands was up by 6 or 0.1% to 4,547

However, decreases were recorded in the number of visitors from:

China down by 204 or 4.0% to 4,834

Canada down by 74 or 5.3% to 1,319

Other Countries declined by 65 or 15.7% to 349

And Japan down by 46 or 7.5% to 564

Australia and New Zealand being our nearest neighbours, account for more than half (68.30%) of our visitor source market followed by the growing markets of US, Canada, UK, Europe and China providing us with 22.32% of our visitors.

While there can be many reasons why one may have travelled to our shores, but when categorised in the four broad classes, visitors arriving for holiday purposes accounted for 77.6% of total arrivals, 8.6% came to visit their friends or relatives, 3.3% came for business purposes while 10.5% visited Fiji for other reasons.

In the moving twelve monthly numbers ending July 2017, the total number of visitors to Fiji increased by 5.7% compared with the same period in 2016. Visitors from Rest of Asia increased by 28.6%; New Zealand by 15.4%; South Korea by 13.8%; the United States of America by 12.1%; Canada by 9.2%; Continental Europe by 6.9%; China by 5.9; Other Countries by 3.6%; Japan by 2.9% and the United Kingdom by 1.3%.

Decreases were recorded for visitors from Pacific Islands which declined by 13.1% and Australia by 0.2%.

January to July visitor arrivals 2017, showed a 6.3% increase over the corresponding period in 2016, up from 435,413 to 462,794.

Similarly, when considering the age categories of travellers visiting our country, majority of visitors to Fiji in July 2017 were in the age range 25-64 (61.4%), which accounts for the vast majority of the working age population.

Children aged 14 and below accounted for 19.0% of the July visitor arrivals; 12.4% were youths aged 15-24 with the remaining 7.2% comprising those in the predominantly retirement age group of 65 and over.

Looking at the occupation of visitors in the month of July.

The top 5 Occupational Groups for visitors engaged in gainful employment in their home countries are as follows:

Professional Workers –16,988

Legislators –12,218

Technician and Related Workers –7,479

Service Workers – 6,263

Craft Workers – 3,449

Visitors who are not in the labour force were categorised into two major groups. The categories and numbers are as follows:

Students –22,775

Retirees, Housewives, Children & Others – 15,838

While we note historically high levels in visitor arrivals month-on-month, tourism earnings too has grown significantly amounting to around $1.6 billion, equivalent to 16.0 percent of GDP.

This provides vital support to our Balance of Payment and is reflected in the level of foreign reserves we hold. In 2017, visitor arrivals are anticipated to grow by an annual 5.0 percent to 831,936 visitors.

Also worthy to note is the resilience of the Tourism industry which had been successfully tested post cyclone Winston time.

The ability of the industry to bounce back and grow even further to provide record visitor arrivals is perhaps what makes this industry truly bankable, at least for the foreseeable future.